Martha Irving, Mélanie LeBlanc, Julie Martell, and Mara Teare. Photo by Stoo Metz.
On June 20th I found myself in a Eastern Front Theatre rehearsal hall for Frenchy’s: The Thrift Musical, a brand new musical by playwright David S. Craig and composer John Roby that, as its name suggest, tells a story that is anchored in Nova Scotia’s iconic thrift store chain that opened their first location in Meteghan in 1971. It is the cast and crew’s last day rehearsing in Dartmouth before heading to Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro where director Patricia Vanstone will continue to block the show, the writers will continue to tweak the script and the songs, and the actors will get the show and their characters into their bodies and on its feet before they open there on July 8th.
This morning in the rehearsal hall there are multicoloured chairs, racks of second hand clothes, and red shopping bins arranged in a facsimile of the stage, and the piano is stage right, and as I enter Martha Irving is going over one of her songs with Musical Director Allen Cole. John Roby is seated at the table facing them looking at the sheet music of the song they are working on on an iPad, and every so often Cole and Roby will discuss changes with one another, which Roby will update on the iPad. Mara Teare comes in and joins Irving at the piano, and they start working on a different song where they are both singing, and at times in harmony. Both Cole and Roby give Irving the freedom to change the tempo, particularly at the end, encouraging her to make the song her own and to sing it in the way she sees the most fit for Sally, her character.
It is an extremely busy day for everyone, especially because Irving and cast mate Julie Martell are also still doing Come From Away at Neptune. There is a weeklong overlap in their contracts. Martell comes in a bit later having dropped off her shoes, and now has to head to Halifax to do two Come From Away performances on this Closing Weekend. Martell tells us the news that Jeremy Webb announced the night before- that Neptune will be bringing Come From Away back next summer. “See you all in Parrsboro!” she announces merrily as she leaves. Irving is staying at the rehearsal, calling out of Come From Away for just the second time in her long career, giving standby Jade Douris-O’Hara the unexpected opportunity to play Martha’s role of Beulah for the matinee show. Irving will be back in Gander this evening. It has been tricky for Irving and Martell to work out their schedules since Come From Away is so popular and Neptune keeps adding performances in attempt to meet the surging demand, and both Irving and Martell are grateful for the heads of both companies and the directors of both shows who have given them some wiggle room space they have needed to make doing both shows work.
The cast and crew take their break a bit early so that there is time for them to go down to the Alderney Landing Farmer’s Market before it closes. John Roby mentions to those who stay in the hall a 1986 production called Country Hearts that he wrote the music for at Theatre Calgary that had 24 year old Jann Arden in the cast. It is described on Theatre Calgary’s website thus, “The owner of the Commodore Hotel has fired his regular band and replaced it with an “uptown country” band known as Sam Slick and the Slowpokes. But a snowstorm complicates matters opening night when the new band is trapped in the hotel with members of the old band and their followers. Country Hearts was written by Nova Scotia-raised composer John Roby and New Brunswick based playwright Ted Johns.” Frenchy’s director Patricia Vanstone was also involved with that show. I’m floored because I didn’t know that Jann Arden had ever been involved in a musical- let alone a new Canadian one.
After the break Patricia Vanstone will block the section of the musical that Irving and Teare were just rehearsing with Cole, and they will bring in Mélanie LeBlanc whose character is also in this scene. Vanstone, along with Assistant Director Amy Reitsma, Stage Manager Christine Oakey, and Assistant Stage Manager Alexa Kirste, each in their own way keep track of where Martell will be in the scene for when they revisit this blocking in Parrsboro. The three actors grab bags and phones from a table behind them to get used to having these props in their hands from the start. What I find the most interesting is the conversation between Allen Cole and John Roby that emerges here about the underscoring and vamping that will serve as a transition between the end of the opening number and the introduction to the second song. The length of this musical interlude depends on the blocking, and the blocking depends on the logistics of the actors being able to make their entrances and their exits, and to be able to create the environment of being inside a car using minimal set pieces and props. Cole is also looking for visual and audio cues from the blocking to signal when he needs to transition from the underscoring into the song’s introduction. Cole and Roby end up having quite a lengthy quiet conversation about what this music should sound like throughout most of this blocking process. These are all the details that you might not notice when attending a World Premiere musical, but in this moment the need for them to build this tiny musical bridge is one of the most important jobs that they have to do this morning. On the stage the actors repeat the same short scene again and again, never saying their lines the same way twice as they play with different interpretations, ideas for their characters, and give themselves and Vanstone as many options as possible to play with.
“Would it be helpful to run it all again?” asks Cole just before the lunch break. “Always,” says Irving.
On Friday, July 17th I had the chance to catch up with Julie Martell and Mara Teare from Parrsboro via Zoom where Frenchy’s: The Thrift Musical has opened and is playing until July 26th at Ship’s Company Theatre. The musical is breaking attendance records there, and they just added a matinee to help meet the surging demand for tickets. The four actors are trying to find some time to go to the Frenchy’s in Amherst one day before their time together at Ship’s is over. Teare is new to the Nova Scotian Frenchy’s phenomenon as they grew up in Saskatoon and are now based in Edmonton, but they are currently wearing a shirt they thrifted from a place in Portland, and Martell is wearing a shirt she found at Frenchy’s, so they are both walking the walk, not just talking the talk for this chat.
Beyond the iconic title Teare says that the musical is “about three generations of women in a family unit, a grandma, an aunt, a mom, and a daughter, and they are all on a road trip together, and they’re all at very pivotal moments in their lives and their identities. They’re trying to find the truest versions of themselves in the clothing that they’re wearing… It’s a family show. I really like the way that they’ve tied in the fact that it’s about a thrift store; the clothes are an important piece in each of the characters’ journeys.”
Martell says that because of how iconic Frenchy’s is in the region, just from the title alone a lot of the folks who are coming to see the show aren’t necessarily avid theatregoers. “They’re coming because they are Frenchy’s-goers, which is really cool, and I think wonderful to see a show that is so accessible.”
Martell plays Gail, the mom of Teare’s character, Tessa, and the daughter of Sally, played by Martha Irving. “She’s going through it right now,” says Martell. “She’s in the middle of a divorce; her and her daughter, in my opinion, there’s so much love, but they’re misfiring. Like many, I remember my teenage years with my mom- she said black, I said white- we just were never on the same page until I grew up and realized that a lot of her nitpicking and whatnot was coming from a place of love. I think that’s where Gail is at. She’s at the place with her daughter who’s about to leave and become her own person, and she’s really worried about her, and she’s trying to hold on to her- maybe smothering her a bit- but, she is alone for the first time in her life in a really long time, and I think she’s grasping at straws. She has got a big heart, but she’s misfiring with her sister and her daughter. She’s very close to her mom.”
“Tessa is a really interesting character,” says Teare. “I feel like she’s one of the big truth-tellers in the show. She really doesn’t back down from confrontation and trying to get other people to tell the truth… and she’s in the midst of an identity crisis because she’s nineteen, so she’s just starting to come into her own, and she’s really wanting to launch into the world.” They say in their own experience they find that it’s essential to get some space from your parents to find out who you are. “I think Tessa has some big things that she’s grappling with that I don’t think anyone in the family knows what she’s going through… and I think she’s really needing that space and independence to figure it out on her own terms. She’s also really close with her grandma. Sally, the matriarch of the family, is really the lynchpin of the show in a lot of ways, and it’s been really lovely to inhabit a role that’s so close to their grandma because I was very close to my own grandmother and that’s such a unique relationship when there’s just a little too much familial closeness between a mother and a daughter, a parent and a child, having that one generation removed there’s something so freeing, and there’s a lot more ease to that relationship. Tessa is also going through it. We all are, every character, is really going through it. [Tessa] is trying to be herself in a very bold way. I really admire her… because she’s… really brave.”
Martell says that since so many folks in Parrsboro have seen the show she’s had many kind interactions with folks in the local coffee shop, and many women have told her that they have brought their daughters or their mothers to see the show. “Many women who are a similar age as me have said how much they relate to what Gail is going through. For me, I have been away for so many years, and have just recently moved home because of aging parents, because of nephews who are growing up, so I can relate to this ‘sandwich generation,’ and wanting to be present for all of it. Having lived away from home for 25-30 years, and now living close to my sister, you just kind of realize what’s important I think as you mature, but, you know, when I was Tessa’s age, I couldn’t wait to get away from my parents- I needed to go to the other side of the country. I [needed] to expand my horizons.”
As part of leaving Nova Scotia in search of new adventures Martell has been involved in the development of a number of brand new musicals like this one. In the Summer of 2004, for example, Martell was part of a workshop performance of Good Vibrations the Beach Boys musical at New York Stage and Film at Vassar College directed by John Carrafa with a cast that included Titus Burgess and Justin Guarini, who, of course, was the runner up to winner Kelly Clarkson in the first American Idol season. She then also worked on a couple new musicals with Jay Turvey and Paul Sportelli during her time at the Shaw Festival. She also has previously worked on another of John Roby’s musicals years and years ago.
“Bringing a brand new musical to life, there’s nothing better,” she says. “I love it. I think it’s one of my favourite things- getting new pages and new music constantly, and feeling like your voice matters, especially when you’re working with a collaborative group- they appreciate your opinion, and they want to know what works and what doesn’t work. So many times as actors we’re given a script and music that has been done hundreds of times, and it’s not necessarily plug and play, but people know this and they’re coming to see a show that they may have seen before.” She gives Mamma Mia, a show she is extremely familiar with having played Sophie in Toronto and Donna twice now in Halifax, she says that there’s an expectation that those songs will be sung in a specific way. “But with something like this we get to play and really figure it out, and even the beauty of figuring it out in Parrsboro and then having a two month hiatus before we bring it to Dartmouth, I’m sure there will be some rewrites and some changes [between the two productions], that we will probably be part of, and even maybe asked about- what’s working, what’s not working- which is awesome. It’s a big responsibility, but it’s also a really cool process to get to be a part of.”
Mara Teare and Devon Brayne in Twelve Days. Photo by Ben Laird.
Teare was in Twelve Days, a new musical by John Slabe produced by Lunchbox Theatre and Forte Musical Theatre in Calgary in December of 2024. “That was a completely different experience, though, because I was an actor-musician in that one, so I was also learning new music, and it was morphing and changing, but I was also learning new sheet music as a violinist. What I really liked about working on a new show is that it’s such a cool experience to be like, ‘I really did that for the first time.’” They note that there are elements that become part of the script, part of the way the production is done, that come from choices that they as an actor have made during the process. “I really love being part of a living process and a living document because it feels so close to the source of creativity and collaboration. What I’ve really loved about working on this show is the music is just incredible, and so intelligent and complex, and it’s so cool to be part of a show with four femme voices singing it.” They say even doing their warm ups with Allen Cole they say, “you’ll hear the room fill with four femme voices, and it’s just such a beautiful sound.” They also say it’s really special to bring a story like this one to a community that has such a direct connection with the show. They notice that sometimes the audiences are laughing because they recognize certain specific aspects of their community and their culture represented onstage.
Teare says that what has been so cool for them in originating a role in a musical specifically is “learning how specific you can get with sharing a character’s journey or emotional state through the minutiae of the music. A lot of little changes that we made in the music were changing quarter notes into dotted quarter notes because it carries the thought of it more strongly, or really [paying] attention to that rest because that’s the moment that they’re thinking about what they’re saying next, and it’s cool to understand, to follow the thread of the story, through both text and the music, and how the more we embodied it, the more we figured it out.”
Martell says that the writers and the director have been incredibly collaborative throughout the process. “Allen Cole, our Musical Director, has been amazing.” She said that once they learned the music it became about “[lifting] the music off the page and [finding their] own voice, having [their] character really inform how [they] would sing the songs and move through the space.”
Julie Martell as Captain Beverley Bass in Come From Away at Neptune Theatre. Photo: Stoo Metz.
I asked Martell about the overlap that she had early on in the rehearsal process with Come From Away as she tells me she has just had her first two days off in a row since February. “Martha and I both are so grateful for the work. Having moved back here to Nova Scotia and just being a working actor in this province is fantastic.” She tells me that Come From Away was a huge show to be a part of, and says that it could look deceiving from the outside, since it is 90s minutes and largely an ensemble piece. “It was probably one of the hardest shows I’ve ever done,” she says. “and then during that one week overlap with Frenchy’s is when we were learning this really intricate music that was so specific and so different from the Come From Away vibe. I know Martha and I were both a bit cross-eyed after that week, but it was fantastic too. It was really forcing me to use all my tools in my toolbox and sing with a different voice.”
Teare mentions that this show includes unconventional instruments. They have ukulele, bass ukulele, percussion, accordion, and kazoo- all played live by a band. “It’s so much fun and so unique.” “I love how Roby and Trish said they wanted it to be instruments that you could find in a Frenchy’s,” adds Martell. Teare says of thrifting in general that you can often find more unique clothing in a wider diversity of sizes at thrift shops like Frenchy’s, and that “there’s something really cool about having something that had a life before you.” Martell agrees saying that she is “all about the thrill of the find.” She mentions Alison Palmer, who played Tanya in the 2018 Neptune production of Mamma Mia, now has her own vintage shop called Dot and Bea, named after her two grandmothers, which started online and now has a storefront in the Beaches in Toronto. “I love Dot and Bea,” says Martell. “She’s got a great, great thrift shop.”
While the closest Frenchy’s to Parrsboro is in Amherst there are lots of fun things for folks to do while coming to Ship’s Company Theatre to see this show. Teare recommends checking the timing of the High Tide. “It’s pretty incredible. The tides in the Bay of Fundy are just so dramatic.” They recommend going down to the Harbour View Restaurant at the end of the Pier Road to watch the tides come in or go out. They also recommend the Salty Spoon, the new cafe in town, and Tyson’s Fine Minerals. They say that the husband and wife, Rod and Helen Tyson, who run the shop have “all the cool rare stones and gems and minerals that they find that is super cool.” Martell says that even growing up in Nova Scotia, this is her first time in Parrsboro and she finds it “amazing.” She seconds all the places that Teare recommends.
Lastly, Martell reiterates what Teare said about having the four femme voices in the room together saying, “There’s not enough of that. We see lots of shows with one female character thrown in there, to get a show where you get four female perspectives, a female director, and two female-led theatres (Laura Vingoe-Cram at Ship’s and Kat McCormack at Eastern Front). It’s long overdue, and when it happens, it’s to be celebrated.”
Frenchy’s: The Thrift Musical by David S. Craig and John Roby and directed by Patricia Vanstone plays at Ship’s Company Theatre (18 Lower Main Street, Parrsboro) until July 26th. The show runs Wednesday to Sunday and many of the performances are sold out or very, very close to sold out. Wednesday to Saturday performances are at 7:30pm. There are 2:00pm matinees on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Tickets range in price from $16.02 for children to $42.72 for General Admission (with Student, and Senior prices in the middle) and they are available online here, by calling 1-800-565-SHOW, or visiting the Box Office in person at 18 Lower Main Street.
The show will run at Alderney Landing Theatre (2 Ochterloney Street, Dartmouth) October 16th to November 1st, 2026. For more information or to buy your tickets for these shows please visit this website.
Accessibility Information: Runtime: 2.5 Hours (Including an Intermission), 6 Wheelchair seats available. Assisted-listening devices available upon request.
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